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Another quick, fun read. I've given it two (I'd have to be drugged and bound to give a book three or more I think!) as it relied on highly unlikely coincidences. I find that lazy in an author and it always spoils my enjoyment of a book and prevents me suspending my disbelief.

The writing was good, the characters well drawn, the story jogged along nicely. I really appreciate JB not needing to find a way of commenting on Georgie's plight; it was far more effective simply to describe him and let that have an impact on us. I thought his recovery by the end was rather miraculous. I was left with the feeling that Alfie was the one who would bear the scars for longer, especially as he would be just the right age to fight in WWII.

I'd recommend this, but not really as a WWI book (my favourite of those is Pat Barker's excellent Regeneration trilogy), more as a story of childhood.

To be fair to this book, the crit is misleading and set me off on the wrong foot with it. It gives the impression that the book focuses on the political aspect of the Abdication Crisis, when really it's a romantic novel set against the backdrop of the abdication. Some of the characters ring true (I haven't checked to see how many of the peripheral characters really existed) but the story brings in too many side storylines and commits that worst of crimes, too many co-incidences. The connection to significant events is very laboured - it seems a character can't step out of their door or look out of a window without witnessing a seminal moment of the 1930s, from the Jarrow hunger march to the Cable Street riots.

It's well-enough written and I did want to know what happened, but I wasn't really convinced by the people or their actions. Now I have to find the sort of book I'd hoped to read in the first place.

I'm a big fan of the WWII genre, but until I read this book (not strictly a WWII story as the events are fictional - perhaps apocryphal is a better word) I hadn't realised how cosily plucky little Blighty's fight has been portrayed. I've read books that detail the most appalling and life-shattering events but nothing ever before that has conveyed the sheer terrifying and exhausting grind of trying to survive while not being sure quite which is the right choice at any point.

At first I was so irritated by spoilt Joan who couldn't manage without multiple maids and a nanny that I thought I wouldn't enjoy the book, but I soon realised that I couldn't put the book down. I have young children too and found myself wondering how on earth I would hold it together for a single night if bombs were falling around us. I knew water supplies were interrupted and various foods became scarce, but I hadn't brought it down in my mind to the level of how long it would take to run out of water and then how you'd feel if you knew there was a chance that any water you did find could kill you all.

As the story wound on I was sobered by the fear and fatigue, the requirement to carry on finding something to feed your children, the squalor of the out-of-town camps that wore on, the mismatch between the official version of events and reality on the ground, the total inability to relax, ever, about anything - this must have been far closer to people's experiences than anything else I have read. It's my first Nevil Shute and has me wanting to read more.